Who should go to a funeral?
Here’s something I’ve been pondering in light of recent events; not just my Dad’s funeral, but another that I heard about.
I’ll put my view, how I feel about it, then you discuss. Agree or disagree. Like always.
There’s no manual for this, and every situation is different, of course, so inevitably this will be a generalisation:
I think there are two reasons to go to a funeral.
1. You knew the deceased. Family or friend or acquaintance or colleague. You want to go and grieve for them/celebrate their life.
and/or
2. You know one or more of the bereaved very well, you are a good friend, and you want to support them.
Edit: Just to be clear, the rest of the text is about point 2.
How well should you know them? I think if you’re a good friend, or a close colleague, or you’ve known them a long time, then it’s appropriate, you should consider going.
But something I’ve noticed in a couple of cases recently, is people who work with a bereaved person, but don’t socialise with them (so they’re not a “friend”), have no strong personal link with the family, and didn’t know the deceased… being keen to attend.
I think this is inappropriate.
It’s absolutely important to show empathy, it’s important to listen, it’s important to act sensitively, it’s important to help where you can.
But to go to the funeral where you don’t know the person who has passed away, and you don’t know any of the bereaved very well?
I think no, you shouldn’t go. Give them some space to grieve.
And this is my main point: A funeral is an extremely personal and emotional event, and the bereaved people are at their most vulnerable.
They should be in a place where they can feel free to let their emotions out, as much as they want, without embarrassment or constraint, without any self-consciousness because of people they know, but don’t know very well, being there.
So I think, if you’re not close to the deceased or the bereaved, don’t go. Send some flowers instead. Or a donation to the designated charity. Or a card. Or a message of condolence.
Like I said, this is a generalisation, perhaps a bit black and white, but it’s how I’m feeling right now.
Agree? Disagree? Are there exceptions? Arguments for or against? What do you think?
PS. I should note that at my Dad’s funeral, I was not personally bugged by the presence of any other attendees, nor was I self-conscious at all, and did not feel constrained, which I think made the whole event very therapeutic for me.
Tags: funerals
15 comments
Some further thoughts on Digital TV
High Definition-only channels
ABC News 24 was the first HD-only channel.
There’s more on the way: Channel 7′s offering aimed at the male demographic “7-Mate” will also be HD-only.
Channel 10′s new “Eleven” will be SD, but it will replace the SD version of their sports channel “One”.
There are rumours Channel 9 will launch a new channel next year, and inevitably that’ll be HD-only, given they have to continue to broadcast their main channel in SD.
Time, perhaps, for those of you with no HD tuner to look into upgrading.
How many channels?
Once the commercial networks launch their third channels, by my calculations we’ll almost be at capacity, with 15, though it’s unclear to me if SBS has the right to put up any more channels.
Certainly things have grown since just a few years ago when there were 6 (analogue) channels: ABC, 7, 9, 10, SBS and Channel 31.
Note the graph is not linear. Based on some stuff from Wikipedia, counting distinct programming, and main channels only, not things like channels displaying TV guides, which were used at one time last decade. I may have missed a few minor and temporary ones, like that 3D test channel that ran for a while this year. That bump in 2001-03 was the ABC’s initial extra channels FlyTV and ABC Kids, both of which got canned.
Ian, an Englishman used to the old UK channel numbering of BBC1, BBC2, ITV (implied “3″), Channel 4, Channel 5 etc, once remarked to me that when they first discovered Australia had a “Channel 10″, they wondered if we also had channels 1 to 9. We didn’t of course, but now we do, though they’re not all numbered like that. (In the mean time of course, the UK has also expanded its channel range via digital… and interestingly, the BBC’s “CBeebies” and “CBBC” are similar to the ABC2 and ABC3 daytime children target demographics.
How many people are watching what?
Here’s some figures from OzTam, Melbourne between 6am and midnight, for all homes and including cable TV share:
- Seven 20.00%
- Nine 18.20%
- Ten 15.80%
- ABC1 10.50%
- GO! 3.90%
- ABC2 3.40%
- 7TWO 3.10%
- SBS1 2.80%
- ABC3 1.30%
- One 1.20%
- ABC News 24 0.80%
- SBS2 0.50%
- All cable channels 18.50%
ABC News 24
Despite glitches like those that affected Sunday night’s repeat of Insiders (where it started late, accidently switched to Inside Business for a mistaken minute or two, then flicked back but was cut short just as Barrie Cassidy made an interesting point), I’m very much enjoying ABC News 24.
This interesting piece highlights something that hadn’t occurred to me: because it covers major press conferences live and unedited, it’s proving a boon for niche journalists, such as the tech press, who are covering the debate over broadband, as they can’t afford to physically be at these press conferences, but can listen in via the TV coverage. And of course their readers, who can also watch the coverage for themselves.
The broken dishwasher
Oh great.
The other day while opening the dishwasher, a “sproing” sound was heard, and now the door’s springy thing doesn’t work — that is, once open, it just drops down to horizontal with gravity, rather than a gentle drop or springing back towards closed like it was before. And it triggered an F1 alarm, which according to the manual is the Flood switch being triggered.
But does that affect the actual washing? Perhaps yes. On the first go, the F1 error triggered again, about halfway through. It used to do that with a U1 alarm. Then, as now, I’ve been able to run a couple of rinse cycles to get things finished, but it’s not as good, of course.
This is a Fisher and Paykel Nautilus DW920. It’s not clear to me how old it is, as I inherited it with the house in 2005. The manual says it’s from 2004, but it’s not clear if the unit is that old, or if that’s just when the manual was last revised — comments on the ProductReview site suggest this model goes back to around 2000.
It does appear that new springs (non-genuine) are available on eBay for about $15. Thanks to the interwebs, others have managed to replace the springs themselves. No doubt I’ll pay through the nose if I get a repairman out to do it.
Given recent experience with the fridge and the washing machine (and even the old car) — paying a bunch to find out something wasn’t worth repairing — I wonder if instead I should be thinking about replacing it altogether.
In the meantime, I hope this doesn’t mean I need to do the dishes myself.
Update lunchtime. Rae and Roger left comments about fixing it myself, which I’d agree with, but I just don’t have the time. I rang F+P this morning; someone will be out today (handy as I’m at home unwell, with two sick kids too). It’ll cost me $121 plus parts, which is expensive, sure, but it’ll be done quickly with no mucking about.
Update 2pm. The repairman came and went. $154.10 for his presence and expertise, 3 x washer spray arm bearings, 1 x door spring. Ah well.
Tags: dish washers, kitchen, repairs
10 comments
Forty
Me at forty.
(Well, 39 and 364 days, yesterday. I had this idea of taking my own picture. It’s startlingly difficult to get a half-decent shot, as you can see. Even the one I used shows something between my teeth — and a tree apparently growing out of the top of my head, though I’ve cropped most of it out.)
To be honest I feel a bit seedy today. Not enough sleep, a cold, and the events of the last couple of weeks mean I haven’t organised anything to mark the occasion except with family. Maybe in a few weeks when the dust settles.
Tags: birthdays
28 comments
Bottom of the foodchain
I’ve been sitting on this blog post for a while now. Haven’t had time to refine it as much as I’d like, but it’s time to just get it out.
We probably don’t need footpath reports on the radio…
…but we do need more consideration of pedestrians.
I think people would jaywalk less, and I suspect there would be less vehicle/pedestrian accidents, if traffic engineers didn’t constantly put pedestrians at the bottom of the food chain.
Long delays for the green man are the biggest problem, and in fact a seemingly relatively simple solution would help a lot.
The issue is that pressing the button after the parallel road traffic has started, in almost all cases, doesn’t get you a green man. You almost always have to wait for the next sequence.
It’s incredibly frustrating for pedestrians, particularly when you might have missed the green by mere seconds. Inevitably the temptation for some people is to jaywalk. And some will find the perceived time to walk somewhere excessive, and choose to drive in future.
It’s doubly frustrating as it’s completely needless — often there is time within the existing timed sequence to give the green man. And if there isn’t time, then it’s arguable that it should happen anyway and the sequence should be extended by a few seconds to cater for it.
And before you say it’s impossible, at some locations you can get a green man after the parallel road traffic has started.
The traffic engineers just need to implement it at more places.
Original Tweets:
- Delays exiting Flagstaff stn due to one western end escalator to concourse stopped #MetroTrains — 9:05 AM Jun 9th
- Also delays due to William St narrow footpath + people using those stupidly huge golf umbrellas, but you can’t blame that on #MetroTrains — 9:06 AM Jun 9th
- People wouldn’t jaywalk as much if traffic engineers didn’t constantly put pedestrians at the bottom of the food chain — 10:17 AM Jul 3rd
On the television
Sometimes there’s just doom and gloom on the television.
- Previous post noting the number of CRT televisions showing up on the streets
Of course, it’d be better if working televisions were put on FreeCycle (so someone can use them, rather than them just getting damaged by rain).
Tags: Bentleigh, street art, televisions
4 comments
Windows 95 is fifteen years old today
Fifteen years ago today, Windows 95 was released.
(Who’s feeling old now?)
Many would remember the adverts, which hit TV screens around the world, to the tune of the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up”.
It was arguably the first modern version of Windows (despite it still apparently having DOS under the hood), and arrived just before the Internet went mainstream, so for many people it and the subsequent versions are what most people became familiar with.
It was certainly the first version of Windows with a Start Menu, and other features such as long filenames (not limited to the DOS convention of eight characters plus an extension), and Plug And Play (allowing you to plug in devices and have the system work out which drivers were needed) — which at the time didn’t work nearly as well as was implied in the literature.
Users of Mac and other platforms would argue that Windows was just playing catchup, and that’s probably true, but for those of us in the dominant Windows world, it was a big step forward.
I remember the launch day well because part of the hype involved lots of promotion, and via a radio station truck parked outside work, I won a copy. Which was good, because I’d intended on buying it for myself, to run on my mighty new computer, the one with the Pentium 60 MHz CPU and 8 Megabytes of RAM.
And here for your geeky viewing pleasure is one of the brochures…
Note that it promises “pre-emptive multitasking and multithreading”, another feature that wasn’t nearly as good as promised. They promised it again in Windows NT 4 a year later, but arguably it never really worked up to expectations until multi-core CPUs (eg hardware, not software) came along.
ANZ free wifi
The ANZ-sponsored free wifi at Southern Cross Station is a nice idea, and would be quite useful… if it worked.
I tried for several minutes one day the other week to get it working, and couldn’t. My mobile could detect both an ANZ Wifi and a “Free public Wifi” network, but neither seemed to actually do anything.
Apparently it runs until the end of September, as well as (for some of this period) some cafes in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Sydney Manly ferries.
I also spotted a tram the other day that allegedly has free wifi on board. Who knows if it actually works though.
Tags: ANZ, wifi
6 comments
